‘Desh se pyar nahi hai?’: Rajasthan MLA Balmukund Acharya questions man over not chanting Vande Mataram at teachers’ event

From the stage, Acharya raised slogans of “Bharat Mata ki Jai” and “Vande Mataram”. As the audience began echoing these chants, he pointed towards one man in the crowd and asked why he wasn’t joining in.

“Bhai sahab bahar se aaye hain kya aap? Khade ho jaaiye. Aap ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ aur ‘Vande Mataram’ kyun nahin bol rahe hain? Aapko kuchh pareshani hai yah bolane mein? Kahan se aaye ho aap (Brother, have you come from some other place? Please stand up. Why aren’t you chanting ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ and ‘Vande Mataram’? Do you have any problem in saying it? Where have you come from)?” the Hawa Mahal MLA asked.

The man, introducing himself as Mohammad Asif from Maharashtra, stood up and clarified that he had no objection to saying “Vande Mataram”.

However, Acharya pressed on: “Aapko desh se pyaar nahin hai? ‘Vande Bharat’ matlab kya hota hai? Ki main apni Bharat Mata ka naman karta hoon. Bharat par vishwas nahin hai aapko? Tirange mein nahin hai? Kaise log hain ye (Don’t you love the nation? Do you know what ‘Vande Bharat’ means? It means I bow to Mother India. Don’t you have faith in India? Not even in the Tricolour? What kind of people are these)?”

Asif reiterated that he believed in the country, but Acharya accused him of disloyalty, “Kuchh log desh ka khate hain, desh mein rahte hain, par desh ke khilaf bolte hain. Yah inki mansikta hai aapke samne aur is baat ko aap samjhiye (Some people live in this country, benefit from it, yet speak against it. This is their mentality, and you should understand this).”

After this, Acharya stepped down from the stage. On his way out, he stopped in front of Asif again, asking why he had not chanted “Vande Mataram”. Despite Asif’s repeated clarification that he had no issue with the slogans, Acharya again accused him of lacking loyalty.

At this point, some members of the audience confronted Acharya, asking why he was forcing someone to chant slogans. Acharya replied that he only wanted everyone present to join in the chants.

As tensions grew, a man sitting beside Asif stood up and angrily countered the organisers, “We bow down to this land five times a day and are buried in this land. How can you say we do not respect it? Why unnecessarily create communal tension in the country? We are also loyal to this land — how can our ethics be questioned?”

The organisers tried to calm the agitated teachers and the event ended shortly afterward.

On Monday, Acharya told The Indian Express, “The event happened around 10 days ago. I was invited to felicitate the teachers. I simply asked that man and a few others why they were not chanting Vande Mataram or Bharat Mata ki Jai. On the one hand, they say the Constitution is supreme but they still do not want to chant praise of our motherland.”